(This is turning into the color series of EPDM blogs!  The last one was about the little green flag.)

 

If you are an Enterprise user then you’ve heard (or seen) the term local cache. It’s pronounced like ‘cash’ and it refers to the files from your vault that physically reside on your local hard drive.  What can be deceiving about Enterprise is that you see all of these files listed in Windows Explorer in a folder structure  on your root C: drive and so it seems like all of those files are actually there. But they may not be … but that’s OK!

The folder structure you see is just a representation – a way to look at the vault contents in a way that is familiar to you. You don’t need to have the files on your local computer to get a lot of information about them. You can see the information on the data card, determine the latest version, see where it is in the approval process, and see if anyone has it checked out. You will need to have a copy in your local cache if you are going to preview the file or if you are going to open it.

That’s interesting, but what does that have to do with the yellow triangle?

Where you can run into trouble is when you have an OLD version of the file.  This can happen when someone else has made new versions and you haven’t updated your vault view with the latest version.

 

If you open a file without checking it out, you will open the one that is in your cache.  This can include the components in an assembly.  Your local copy of the assembly may be the latest version but some of the components may not be.  So when you open the assembly, you may not see all the changes that have been made to the components.

 That could be confusing.  How can I prevent that?

Before previewing or opening a file, get in the habit of always doing a  If opening or previewing an assembly, Get Latest Version of the assembly file, and Enterprise will also check and get all of the referenced files.

Another option is to clear your local cache.  That will remove all local copies of files.  Enterprise will retrieve the latest version of everything needed when opening or doing a preview.

 I’m afraid I’ll lose something important if I clear the local cache.

Let me say this – no harm should come if you clear your cache on a regular basis. Enterprise will NOT remove files that you have checked out or are references in a file that is checked out so you don’t have to worry about losing your work. Probably the worst that can happen is that there may be a bit of a delay if you need to preview or checkout a file since Enterprise will have to download the file from the archive server.

 Are there any files in the cache that I shouldn’t clear?

You should not clear Toolbox files (by default you won’t.)  You also do not want to clear the cache of Design Library files that are in the vault.   If cleared, they won’t be visible in the Design Library Task Pane.

 Can anything happen if I don’t clear my cache?
Well, for one thing, you only have so much room on your hard drive.   You could also preview or open out of date files as was discussed earlier.

There may also be times that you will see a file that is grayed out and shown as <Local File>. This means that someone else has deleted or moved that file from the vault and if you did not clear your cache, you will still have a local copy on your hard drive.  All you need to do is delete it.

Stay tuned and we’ll see if I can come up with another color in Enterprise to write about!

 

Scenario 1 without 3DVIA Composer

Your engineering staff has spent considerable time designing your product using your CAD software and creating all of the drawings.  One of the engineers is finishing up the final details.  The rest are starting to work on a new project.  You can sit back and take a break and let manufacturing start making the product.

While you’re drinking your coffee the phone rings and Joe, the Sales Manager, wants to get some pictures of the new product to use for sales literature.  He needs some illustrations with dimensions, cutaway images showing internal features, and an animation showing how the product works now that the design is finalized.  He needs the pictures in the next couple of days so he can get the literature to the printer in time.  You tell him you’ll see what you can do and will get back to him later.  The engineers are the only ones who can make those images and an animation from their models but they’re already busy on the new project.  I guess you’ll have to pull someone off and get these done.  But it’s going to put the new project behind.

As soon as you hang up the phone, Sally, your Production Manager, comes in your office and tells you they need more information on how the product is assembled.  Because of the anticipated demand, the company has hired new employees and they have to get up to speed quickly.  She wants to know if there is a way to create some kind of assembly video so the new employees would be able to be productive immediately.  You know the engineers could create an animation using the CAD models but that would mean pulling another one off the new project.  And creating an animation that way is time consuming.

After she leaves and you’re trying to figure out how to get all of this done, the phone rings again.  It’s Pete, one of the major account managers.  He has been talking to one of your biggest customers and they would like to see better documentation showing how to install the product and how to do maintenance.  They will be sending your products overseas and they really need documentation for non-English speakers that doesn’t require much translation.  He wants to know if your engineers can create some installation and maintenance documents.

Just think, a few minutes ago, life was good.  Now what are you going to do?  This phone rings – it’s Pete again.  One more thing, the customer would like to be able to order spare parts online.  Is it possible to create exploded views so the customer could click on the part they need and add to their cart?  Thanks!

ARRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Scenario 2 with 3DVIA Composer

Your engineers are using their CAD software to design and create the parts and assemblies for your new product.  They are still in the design phase and the final product is still a few weeks away but things are going well.

Joe, the Sales Manager, stops in to go over some ideas for literature to help sell the product.  He would like dimensioned views and images showing internal features.  You tell him about this great software called 3DVIA Composer that can take the current CAD data from your engineers and create 2D technical illustrations with dimensions and call-outs, and the high resolution images of the internal features.  What’s great is that the images can be created now by non-engineers so Joe can lay out the literature while the engineers are still working on the design.  When the design is complete the images can be updated with the latest CAD data.  Joe doesn’t have to wait until after final design.

At the weekly design review meeting, Sally, the Production Manager, brings up that they will need to hire new employees for the anticipated demand.  She is concerned about how long it will take them to understand the assembly process.  You let everyone know how 3DVIA Composer can create assembly instructions using the CAD models your engineers are developing.  The video can show the steps to assembly the product and can be interactive.  The animation can be created to stop at certain points in the process and when the employee is ready to move on to the next step they just need to click on button on the screen.  The animations can show the tools required, names and part numbers of the components, written instructions, arrows, and parts fading in and out to make the instructions easy to follow.  Anyone who has learned how to use the 3DVIA Composer software can use the CAD data created by the engineers to create any number of assembly videos or instructions.  These can be worked on now and updated as the CAD data is modified.  That way they will be ready to go when the designs are finalized.

When Pete, one of the major account managers, calls, he tells you about some concerns from one of his biggest accounts.  They send the products overseas and they spend a lot of money translating installation and maintenance information into other languages.  Do you have any ideas?  You tell Pete how 3DVIA Composer can be used to create animations that the user can step through that don’t require much text.  You tell him about the animations that will be created for manufacturing.   These assembly and maintenance videos can be an outgrowth of those.  The whole idea of “A picture is worth a thousand words.” can be captured in these videos.

Pete also mentions how customers would like to be able to have an interactive way to order spare parts online.  You show Pete something you’ve been working on using 3DVIA Composer.  You created an exploded view with balloons for each part along with a Bill of Material.  When you click on the part in the assembly or the BOM, it is linked to a page saved as HTML which shows the part, a description, and a price.  A link on the page could then be tied to some e-commerce software to allow the user to purchase that part.  Pete tells you that’s perfect!

You sit down with a cup of coffee knowing that things are under control.  While your engineers continue working on the final design, you’re satisfied that sales, production, and the customers will get the documentation they need when your engineers are done.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!

 

The latest version of 3DVIA Composer (V6R2012) was recently released and there are new features to make your documentation stand out.

I just want to mention a couple that I think are really cool. To see all of the new features go to Help > Release Notes … in 3DVIA Composer.

Event Links
It’s now possible to quickly add event links to your animation to make it easier for the user to maneuver around in the animation. You can find them in the Image 2D drop down menu or by right clicking. The links are for Next, Previous, First, Last. These buttons are subscribed to Styles called “Play Widget First”, “Play Widget Previous”, etc. The event is already linked in the Style. So clicking the Next button will jump the user to the next marker in the animation during Play mode.

Glow
You can now add Glow around the model to highlight it. (Makes it looks like you should be hearing a choir of angels!)

Multiple Cutting Planes
It’s now possible to add multiple cutting planes at one time including capping of all edges.

Direct input for some controls
Some properties that were previously only controlled by a slider now have direct value input. Besides having more control, the numeric value can be saved in a style.

2D Panel Shadows
To add more interest and depth to 2D Panels, shadows can be added. You can modify various properties of the shadow and these can be saved in a style.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of all the new features. These are just a few that I’ve had a chance to play with and I thought you might enjoy know about. Please read through the Release Notes for descriptions of all of them. If you have any questions, please give Tech Support a call.

There is a setting on the workflow states in EPDM that is easy to overlook but can drive you nuts while troubleshooting. That setting is “Ignore permissions in previous states.” In 2011, it is the green flag icon on the State Box. (Previously the icon was a hand.)

Why this setting can be troublesome.
If this flag is not set there will be circumstances where permissions set at a particular state are not followed.  This particularly happens when a permission was granted at an earlier state but removed at a later state.  Let’s go through an example. I’m going to use a simple workflow and explain what happens with “Read file contents” for two groups.

 

Scenario 1:
The “Ignore permissions in previous states” flag is NOT selected for any state.

Permission: Can “Read file contents”

 

 

With this setup someone in Sales should be able to see any file that is in the Released state but not in any other state.

 

 

 

A document was added to the vault and is currently in the Initiated State.

This is what an Engineering user sees:               This is what a Sales user sees:

 

 

 

 

So far everything is as expected.

Change State was initiated on the document and it was sent to the Released State.

This is what an Engineering user sees:                 This is what a Sales user sees:

 

 

 

 

 

At this point, this is what we planned with our workflow.

Now, though, let’s Change State on the document again and send it to the Under Editing State.

This is what an Engineering user sees:                 This is what a Sales user sees:

 

 

 

 

 

Wait a minute! The Sales user is NOT supposed to see files in Under Editing. So what’s going on?

It has to do with that little green flag. Because we did not set the “Ignore permissions in previous states”, the Sales user can see the file when it is Under Editing because they were able to see it in the previous Released state.

 

Scenario 2:

Let’s try this again with a new file but this time we’ll set the “Ignore permissions” flag in all states.

This is what an Engineering user sees:                 This is what a Sales user sees:

 

 

 

 

 

Change state to Released.
This is what an Engineering user sees:                  This is what a Sales user sees:

 

 

 

 

 

OK, so far, so good.

Change state to Under Editing.
This is what an Engineering user sees:                  This is what a Sales user sees:

 

 

 

 

 

This time, this is exactly what we wanted to happen.

By turning on the “Ignore permissions in previous states” flag, the permissions set for each state were followed exactly as we set them.  So don’t ignore that little green flag!

When Toolbox parts are saved out as separate, unique files, they retain information about their parentage.  It’s called a Toolbox flag.  In the past it usually didn’t cause a problem but in SolidWorks 2011, a setting was added that could potentially cause your saved parts to be replaced with standard Toolbox components.  You can tell if a component has a Toolbox flag by the bolt icon showing in the Assembly tree.

The new setting tells SolidWorks to always look in the Toolbox location for Toolbox components.   Uncheck this setting and SolidWorks should find your parts correctly.

The best solution, though, is to turn off the Toolbox flag on your components and turn them into regular SolidWorks parts.  There is a program that is installed with SolidWorks that will do this.

1. Go to C:\Program Files\SolidWorks Corp 2011\SolidWorks\Toolbox\data utilities and look for sldsetdocprop.exe
2. Double click on the executable file.
3. Make sure the Property State is set to No under Set Document Property.
   Check Part Files.
   Select either Add Files… to select individual files or Add Directories… to select an entire folder.
4. Click Update Status.
5. To verify the status of a file after running the program, select a file and click Show Selected property.

If you have any questions, please give Tech Support a call at 763-560-8600, Option 4.